Driving Engagement Through Conversation

Leaders have a significant impact on their employees and the performance of their organisations. Their ability to navigate the complexities of the work environment and create meaningful connections with their employees is critical to achieving high employee engagement and ultimately motivating people to perform.

“Without employee engagement, factors that impact organisational performance are compromised,” says Dean Tuckey, Senior Manager of PVW’s People and Performance Advisory Service. “Factors like broader team engagement, productivity and service quality, retention and having meaningful and respectful conversations.”

Main reasons for leaving:

Employees leave organisations for many reasons. If they are not feeling engaged or valued, or the environment is not conducive to leveraging their strengths, it can result in them feeling lost and unconnected. They will contribute less and ultimately feel as though they don’t belong.

According to seek.com.au, people leave their jobs for one of five reasons:

1. Management
2. Culture
3. No opportunity for development
4. Needing a fresh start; or
5. Remuneration

The intriguing part is that three of the five reasons listed above are directly related to employee engagement: Management, Culture, and Development.

Gallup, a global research, and workplace consulting organisation (www.gallup.com) knows from 50 years of employee engagement research that how engaged your people are, has a direct impact on your business performance.

PVW Specialist Advisor, Sherren Edkins, agrees, “Employee engagement cannot be accomplished by stealth or assumption, and it is not a HR problem to solve.

"Employee engagement is a deliberate and intentional activity that management must own and grow."

Key drivers to building employee engagement:

• Provide a clear vision to your people and describe their place in that vision.
• Create a culture that is psychologically safe and guides performance.
• Provide an environment that fosters potential and empowers people to develop and grow.
• Develop your leaders’ capability and capacity to in turn develop their people.
• Empower strength-based learning and performance.

Employee engagement is all about connection: Connection to have honest conversations; Connection to motivate your people; Connection to foster enthusiasm to contribute.

Develop long-lasting connections by engaging in regular and meaningful conversations. Get to know your employees, what motivates them, what they seek from their workplace experience, and how they view their experience.

Be open for them to get to know you too and what that means for a mutually beneficial working relationship. The more you know about your people the more you can do to engage them and support them to be motivated and perform.